The Russellville Police Department announced Tuesday the department is continuing the Amnesty Month program through the end of February.

“We are a police department that strives to be community oriented,” RPD Public Information Officer Drew Latch said in a press release.

“With this in mind, we have listened to the communities support for this program, and we intend to extend the program one more month.

“We have had an overwhelmingly positive response due to the Amnesty Month. We served 401 Warrants in the month of January — this is 200 more warrants served than last January.”

Latch said that people who came to RPD to get their warrant taken care of told police they wanted a fresh start and this policy was giving them the opportunity to begin the process of heading in the right direction.

How this works — if a person has a warrant with our department, they can come into the police department and we will give them a court date for a mandatory court appearance, instead of taking them to jail.

This policy doesn’t apply to any person with a warrant who is stopped or contacted by an officer at any other location.

This has to be a voluntary commitment of the person with the warrant to come in to the police department and get served a court date in person.

For questions about the policy or about a warrant, call (479) 968-3232 and ask for the warrants department.